How to Get AI Chatbots to Recommend Your Business Over Competitors

For a long time, the marketing firm Vital Design kept a blog. It was a basic SEO tactic: Write posts about the things your target user searches for, and those people are more likely to discover you in Google searches.

Then AI came along, and Vital’s organic blog traffic plummeted by 60%. Maybe you’ve experienced the same problem, just like businesses everywhere.

But here’s the twist: While Vital’s traffic cratered, its sales-ready leads remained steady or increased. How? Because Vital had started investing in the next SEO-like strategy: It’s often called answer engine optimization, or AEO, and it helps boost your company’s visibility in AI search queries.

In addition, AEO can help search engines more efficiently inform your consumer — which is changing the entire sales cycle. 

Max DesMarais, Vital Design’s director of strategy, calls this the “marketing funnel push.” Customers’ research phase now happens outside your website, through AI tools that synthesize information from multiple sources. So by the time they reach your site, they’ve already been prequalified by AI.

“They are already further down the funnel than they previously were, creating a better environment for them to convert on sales-ready leads,” DesMarais says. So if you can get AI to recommend your business during that research phase, you’ll attract more qualified prospects who are ready to buy.

Here’s how to do it.

Create hyperspecific service pages

One of the most effective tactics, DesMarais says, is to create content such as new product pages on your website — including features, attributes, and FAQs — that address extremely specific customer needs. The more niche and targeted, the better. 

For example, let’s say you’re a marketing agency (like Vital Design) that works with many different WordPress themes and serves multiple industries. You’d want to build pages that address each of those combinations — highlighting specific tools you use, industries you serve, problems you solve, or geographic areas you operate in. 

“In the past, we would’ve never created a page that said we work on, say, the WordPress plug-in Elementor — because there was no search volume on Google telling us that we should do that,” DesMarais says. “But nowadays, we’re going to create the page that says we work on Elementor, and that we do this specifically for higher education.”

These pages don’t need to rank on Google; they just need to be crawlable by AI tools that are looking for precise matches to user queries.

The strategy works because AI tools excel at matching specific queries with specific solutions. When someone asks ChatGPT for “a WordPress agency that works with Elementor and does SEO and paid advertising and branding work in higher ed,” DesMarais wants his business to be recommended.

Focus on bottom-of-funnel Content

While many businesses are still creating top-of-funnel blog content, DesMarais recommends shifting resources toward bottom-of-funnel pages that directly address purchase intent.

In other words: In the past, a marketing agency might have posted an article called, “How to Choose a Marketing Agency.” That was top-of-funnel content, aimed at anyone searching for general information on marketing agencies. But now, DesMarais suggests, you want to create posts that are more specific. Like: 

1. “Marketing Agency for SaaS Companies in Austin”
2. “WordPress Development for Healthcare Organizations” 
3. “SEO Services for E-commerce Brands Under $5M Revenue”

For e-commerce companies, these blogs and posts might center around products, while software-as-a-service startups focus more on specific solutions and industries.  

To be clear: Consumers may never read this content, or even be aware that it exists. But the pages will help inform the AI answers, creating more certainty that your business is the right fit for someone’s needs.

Make your information AI-readable

When you’re writing content for humans, you need to focus on good storytelling and fluid language.

But when you’re writing content to be read by AI, you need to think like a machine — and craft content that’s clear, structured, and easy to organize. 

“We want to make sure that the information is accessible and easy for these AI overviews to read and see,” DesMarais emphasizes.

Your headlines should be clear, not clever. Use lots of bullet points and lists to detail services and specialties. Include markers of authority, like testimonials, specific industry experience, and case studies. And include an FAQ section that tackles the things that people are most likely to ask AI.

Track what’s actually working

Once you’ve done all this, you’ll face a new challenge: It’s hard to know what’s actually working. Traditional analytics don’t capture the full customer journey, so someone might research you through ChatGPT, then visit your website days later and convert.

“You’re missing some marketing attribution because you’re not even quite aware of it,” DesMarais says.

To get a clearer picture, you’ll need to be more proactive than before. Here are some ways to start:

1. Ask new customers how they found you.
2. Track referral traffic from answer engines.
3. Track direct traffic increases alongside AI optimization efforts.
4. Track how AI mentions your brand against specific queries your organization finds valuable. 
5. Use tools that monitor how AI recommends you
6. Pay attention to the quality of leads, not just the quantity.

While this shift can feel daunting, DesMarais sees it as an opportunity for businesses willing to evolve. “If you’re not adapting, you’re going to fall behind,” he says. “Start to think about how your target audience is shifting their behavior, and figure out how you can show up in front of them.”

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What Does AI Say About You?

Want to know if AI is recommending your company, or if your AEO efforts have paid off? You could write queries all day to find out…or you could use any of the multiple AI tools specifically designed to find out. 

Here are three of the most popular:

For entry-level tracking: Otterly.ai 
Monitors and analyzes your brand mentions across ChatGPT, Gemini, and many other AI platforms. Audits your site to improve search results. Notable for its affordable cost. (from $29/month; otterly.ai)

For fast-moving teams: AthenaHQ
Also monitors and analyzes. Plus, it includes features that provide specific optimization signals and automated content creation to improve your rank. (from $95/month; athenahq.ai)

For enterprise-level data: Profound
Detailed analytics. Helps brands understand their ranking in complex shopping queries and buyer journeys. Especially known for enterprise services. (from $99/month;  tryprofound.com)